God provides what we need for this day to quench our thirst and sustain us on our journey.

Vicar Andrea Bonneville
The Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost, Lectionary 26 A
Texts: Exodus 17: 1-7

Beloved in Christ, grace to you and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

The people of God are thirsty.

Days and nights on this wilderness journey. Days blending together. Losing track of time. Forgetting the past. Wanting to turn back time. Frustrated. Uncertain. Powerless. Angry. Anxious. Afraid. And thirsty.

Thirst so consuming that the Israelites suggest turning back to Egypt, saying to Moses, “why did you bring us out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and livestock with thirst?”

Thirst so consuming that they forget about the oppressive system they were living under. Can you blame them? At least in Egypt there was water… even if it was toxic water.

Thirst so consuming that they quarrel with God saying, “is God really among us or not?”

Thirst so consuming they are questioning if they are going to be able to survive to sustain their community during this journey. Wondering if the next generations will have a future where they can thrive.

I don’t know about you. But I am thirsty. And really, it wasn’t until reading and meditating on this story of the people of Israel that I realized I am thirsty all of the time.

Are you thirsty?

Thirsty from all that is happening around the world that is dehydrating our souls?

Creation is crying out as we witness to the effects of climate change. The U.S. has now reached over 200,000 deaths caused by COVID-19 and this virus continues to threaten our lives and our communities. The election is just weeks away. And there is still no justice for Breonna Taylor and George Floyd among countless others.

This is just to name a few major things on a societal level. Recognizing that there is still so much happening in our personal lives and in this community.

Author and Professor Kate Bowler wrote this week, “Lord, we are moving through time no longer believing it is taking us to somewhere good. Mark our Paths. Lead us now.”

Let me say that again. Bowler quarrels with God, “we are moving through time no longer believing it is taking us to somewhere good. Mark our Paths. Lead us now.”

In times like these we thirst with the Israelites asking God, “are you with us or not?”

When the Israelites begin to set up camp at Rephidim, they know that it is not the place where God is leading them. In order to settle in a new place, there needs to be a good source of water. If there isn’t flowing water, they know they have not reached the promised land.

No water = no life.

Their feet are blistered. Their backs aching from carrying their whole lives on their shoulders. Watching as members of the community, especially their children, their elders, and their livestock, suffer.

They stop to rest for the evening and set up camp. But they know they won’t be staying there long. What’s the point of getting comfortable if there is no water?

Even the journey can be deceiving. They possibly can hear the running water as they lay awake at night, but the water is nowhere in sight. They know it has to exist, but they don’t know what it will taste like.

Last week, we listened as we heard that these people were provided with an abundance of manna and quail. Maybe once they had food, they thought they were one step closer. An appetizer to what will be a full course meal of milk and honey.

A promised land so wonderful that the whole community could thrive.

But they are not there yet.

And the people of God are afraid.

They fear that they may not live to see another day let alone make it to the promised land.

We hear this fear in Moses as he cries to God, “what shall I do with these people? They are almost ready to stone me.” Moses is representing his fear and the fear of the people.

God in return tells Moses, “Go on ahead of the people, and take some of the elders of Israel with you; take in your hand the staff with which you struck the Nile, and go. I will be standing there in front of you on the rock at Horeb. Strike the rock, and water will come out of it, so that the people may drink.” So Moses struck the rock in sight of the Elders of Israel.

Water comes out of the rock so that the people may drink. The source of water isn’t enough for the people to build their community around it. But it is enough to quench their thirst.

When God’s people drink of this water, their thirst is no longer all consuming. The flowing water is all that they need for today.

Because…

Water for today = Life for tomorrow
Water for today = Hope for tomorrow
Water for today = Nourishment for the Journey

Like the people of Israel, we don’t know what the promised land here on earth will look like. But we know God is leading us there. Not because we see it, or hear it, or taste it. But because we know that God is with because God is marking our journey.

When Moses strikes the rock, he does so in the sight of the Elders. This is a sign of hope. A sign that the people of God are going to be transformed from generation to generation. God is showing the Elders how to find hope. This hope is going to live through the generations.

God shows us…

How to find life in ordinary objects
How to find hope in ordinary places
How to find nourishment in unexpected ways

People of God, We are Thirsty.

But we have been on this wilderness journey far too long to turn back now.

So for today, for the next week, maybe for the next month. However long. Let’s seek out our rock of life-giving water that God is leading us to and camp out for a while. Long enough to quench the thirst of today and give us nourishment for the journey ahead.

Water = Life

And we have water for today.

Amen.
And thanks be to God.

God chooses that every child of God must be blessed by the abundant resources of this earth, and invites you and me to join in that generosity and find life and joy.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost, Lectionary 25 A
Texts: Matthew 20:1-16; Exodus 16:2-15

Beloved in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

What if in this story Jesus actually means God cares about real things like money?

After all, Jesus used a financial transaction as the chief image in this story. He describes a farmer who hires workers to bring in a harvest, workers who were hired at different times in the day, workers who end up being paid the same.

Most of us were taught that in this parable Jesus is speaking of people who come to faith early and work as disciples for years, compared to those who might, on their deathbed, seek hope in God’s love. This interpretation says God’s grace is full and complete even to the one who only turns toward home in the last moments of life. But I know you, my family at Mount Olive. You don’t need this parable to teach you what you already deeply believe, that God’s grace belongs to all God’s children, late-comers or long- workers.

But if we turn this parable like a jewel in the light, focusing on the money image Jesus uses, we see a truth about the reign of God hidden here Jesus also wants us to see. A truth about the economy and how God desires the world to work.

To see this, let’s imagine that the vineyard owner is God.

There are ways to read the parable where we’re the owner in the story, or where we’re the long-hours workers, or where we’re the ones standing idle who receive both the grace of being hired and a full-day’s wage for an hour’s work.

But here, let’s consider God as the owner. If this parable might actually be about wages, that suggests that God’s intent, God’s generosity, is that the economy of this world is one where everyone, without exception, has enough to live on, a roof over their heads, a meal on the table.

This is not how our world works, is it?

We can’t even agree on a fair minimum wage in this country that allows everyone who works to earn enough to feed all who depend on them. We’re seeing steady attempts to dismantle what structures we do have to care for the health of all people, to ensure that those too old to work still receive money to live.

Most people can’t see this parable as speaking to the actual economy because it seems ridiculous. Argument after argument is made how this isn’t sustainable, how the world doesn’t work that way.

But none of those arguments matter to us if God wants the world to work that way. “Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me?” the owner asks. If we imagine the owner as God, that question weighs heavily on those who want to follow God’s way.

God has provided a world with abundant resources, enough for all. That’s not disputed. But humanity has largely decided we won’t let God choose what we do with God’s resources. Our systems are built not with abundant generosity at their core, but with strict rules of how to earn money, rewards for accumulating for ourselves and building up treasures at the expense of others.

I know this is uncomfortable ground for those of us who have money laid away.

You might value how you’ve worked hard, and put aside money, and are reluctant even to consider that God might hope for something else. It would be easier to spiritualize this parable and say, “of course it’s not about money and the economy.”

The problem is, hearing this parable with real money and the real economy in mind resonates with everything the Bible says about God’s view of wealth and poverty, abundance and scarcity. God constantly calls us to live justly, feed those who are hungry, care for those who lack. God never says in the Bible, “build up barns for yourself so you make sure you’re taken care of.” So, God happily saying in this parable, “Everyone eats tonight, everyone gets a day’s wage,” is exactly what we expect God to say.

So if you and I wish to be faithful to Christ here, what can we do?

First, imagine living with a belief in God’s abundance for all – manna for everyone to live on, wages enough for everyone to eat and have shelter and clothing. If that’s what God chooses to do with what belongs to God, consider: how can you be part of that plan and not one of the grumblers or hoarders?

Second, imagine how to learn what’s enough for you to live. In both the manna story and Jesus’ parable, there’s one clear standard: do you have enough for today? Israelites who tried to save more manna than they needed for that day found it was rotten. Vineyard workers all got a day’s pay, regardless. If what God chooses to do with what belongs to God is ensure that every single child of God gets what they need for today, what does that mean for you, your decisions?

Third, since you want to follow Christ, when arguments rise up in you against an economic understanding of God’s will– as they can in all of us – you could make an effort to set them aside. It’s far easier to find reasons “that can’t work in the real world” than to imagine what God might call all of us to do. So you could practice the discipline of setting aside your gut-level objections and letting the Spirit open your mind and heart to new possibilities.

Don’t be frightened, though. You aren’t asked to find all the answers all at once.

Jesus wants parables to stick with us, roll around in our minds and imaginations. Let this one do that. Ponder it and hold it in your heart and see where it brings you in the next weeks, months, years.

Because if you know you want to follow Christ on this path to economic justice for all people, a society where everyone is cared for and has what they need, a world where every nation equally shares in the resources of the earth, remember that Christ calls you to follow a path, not instantly arrive at the destination. Baby steps are still steps. You and I can learn this together, follow Christ together, and that in itself is faithfulness.

And remember the main point of this story: the Holy and Triune God is abundantly generous, and that includes, you, too.

You learned that at the cross, saw it at the empty tomb, know it in the Spirit’s breath in your heart. Here, your faltering steps to be faithful are welcome to God, because you’re starting to choose what God chooses. When you stumble, God’s abundant love and forgiving grace wash over you and lift you up again.

There’s enough for everyone on this earth. Everyone gets to eat every day. Everyone has a place to sleep. Everyone has what they need to live. That’s what God chooses for what belongs to God.

Are you envious of this generosity? Or might you, living as Christ, want to find the delight of joining in it with the Triune God for the life of the world?

In the name of Jesus. Amen

See the cross through the teaching of Jesus and know that it is the shape of the life in Christ, the way for the healing of all.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
Holy Cross Day
Texts: 1 Corinthians 1:18-24; John 3:13-17

Beloved in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

What do you see when you look at the cross?

When you put a cross on a chain and place it around your neck, what are you saying? When you bow to the cross as it is carried into our worship, what are you thinking?

This feast of the Holy Cross has its origins in commemorating the fourth century finding of a beam of wood, excavated from a hill in Jerusalem, that the one leading the search, Helena, mother of the emperor, believed was the true cross of Christ. By Luther’s day there were enough pieces of the true cross in reliquaries across Christendom you could build Noah’s Ark from all of them.

So: is the cross a relic for you to adore? Is it a talisman when you wear it, where you feel protected? Do you wear it openly to declare your faith? Is it a reminder that Christ died for you and your sins?

All of these are very personal, individual understandings of the cross. As if Christ’s death was for each individual believer to own. Some of our more beloved cross hymns, like “When I survey the wondrous cross,” and, “Beneath the cross of Jesus I long to take my stand,” come from that personal perspective, using “I,” and “me,” viewing the cross primarily for the suffering and agony of Jesus on it, and the personal forgiveness of sins that are given through it.

But what if, when you looked at the cross, you held with you the words and teaching of the One who died on the cross? Jesus had a very particular and consistent focus that the cross reveals to you and me. We might want to pay attention to that.

I talk a lot about the “cross-shaped life,” and sacrificial, vulnerable, love as the way of Christ.

That’s because this is the guiding focus and thread of Jesus’ teaching. Jesus, the face of the Trinity for us, clearly called humanity to follow a self-giving path of love for neighbor and God that is sacrificial, vulnerable, focused on losing for the sake of the other.

So, can you look at the cross not only for your own sake, but as a call to a way of life, as Jesus meant it to be, the path Jesus has laid out for all who wish to follow?

There’s real danger in making the cross only your personal salvation talisman.

First, it implies that God’s plan of salvation is individualistic. If the only thing that matters is that I believe that Jesus died to save me from my sins, I don’t really ever have to think about the life and suffering and reality of my neighbor. The only concern I have for my neighbor is if they know they also are “saved” by the cross.

Second, this focus implies that the cross is only about a single, one-time transaction – Jesus died for me – and doesn’t necessarily lead to the life in Christ Jesus talked about. All I need to know is that I’m “saved,” that I get life after death. I don’t have to think about the shape of my life, because Jesus died to save me. Too often this creates a Christian life that bears little resemblance to Jesus’ teaching and command.

Here is the truth the Scriptures proclaim with joy: the Triune God pours out God’s life in love to show humanity the same path.

The true healing of the cross begins with the suffering and death of God’s Son and continues with my suffering love and yours, our willingness to lose our lives to find them. Jesus came to identify once and for all the way of Christ, the way God has always been calling God’s people to walk. Jesus models this way, teaches this way, and lets himself be killed to show that this way is the only way God will love the creation back into the life God intended for us.

Easter then is the great triumphant Life of God breaking through suffering and death, showing that this cross-shaped path of Christ, while difficult, is filled with life and hope and resurrection.

That’s what Jesus and his followers whose words are in Scripture have taught. It’s the wisdom that makes life rich and abundant, and leads to the healing of all things. But, as Paul says today, God’s wisdom in the cross is a wisdom that looks like foolishness to many. So let’s be sure we keep our eyes on Jesus, and our ears, too.

“When I am lifted up,” Jesus said, “I will draw all people to myself.” (John 12:32)

Yes, the cross is for you, and yes, your sins are fully and freely forgiven. But it is also for all, because God’s love is for the whole cosmos, Jesus proclaims today.

And seeing that when you look at the cross, the love of God in Christ flows in you through the Spirit and you are strengthened and fed to follow the same path of Christly love that the cross began. To look at the cross around your neck, or carried in worship, or hanging on your wall, and remember you are blessed to shape your life, your love, your whole being the same way.

And in this, Jesus’ hope to draw all people into Christ’s love will be realized.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen

We do not live to ourselves, and we do not die to ourselves. Whether we live or whether we die, we belong to Christ. And if we belong to Christ, we belong to each other.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost, Lectionary 24 A
Texts: Romans 14:1-12; Matthew 18:21-35

Beloved in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

We do not live to ourselves, and we do not die to ourselves.

Whether we live, or whether we die, we are the Lord’s, Paul says. And if we all belong to Christ, we all belong to each other.

That means that in Christ, there are no individual believers, you on your own, I on my own. All in Christ are interconnected. What hurts you, hurts me. What gives life to you gives life to me.

You can’t understand Paul without realizing how central this is to everything for him. You can’t understand Jesus without it, either. But it’s not what you and I were taught in our culture of American individualism. So there are things we need to hear and learn.

One of them is this: belonging to each other in Christ doesn’t mean you and I and everyone else is the same.

Paul’s Roman Christians are divided between Gentile and Jewish Christians, and the community is falling apart. Some kept kosher and observed Jewish festival days. Others didn’t believe they had to. Both groups derided each other, and Paul urgently calls them to live into their deeper oneness in Christ.

And hear this: Paul believes diversity is blessing and gift and isn’t erased by unity in Christ. Eat what you will, celebrate when you will, or don’t, Paul says today, as long as what you do is done in honor of Christ. Our disagreements, if they are done in Christly love and for the sake of Christ, are part of the gift of the community, Christ’s Body, our primary reality.

Do you see how different that is from what we’ve learned? Maintaining and celebrating our diversity – whatever it is, if it’s theological, or cultural, or ethnic, or genetic – is assumed in Christ, all under this deeper reality: we do not live to ourselves and we do not die to ourselves. Whether we live or whether we die, we belong to Christ. And if we all belong to Christ, we all belong to each other in all our diversity or our disagreement.

Belonging to each other in Christ also means that the community can’t afford to lose anyone.

In Matthew 18, Jesus describes a vision of God’s beloved community, where the central reality is that no one is lost. Everyone belongs.

So in the verses before today’s parable Jesus says these things:

• God’s will is that not a single one be lost.
• All 100 sheep – for God, 99 ½ won’t do, as the spiritual delights – all 100 must be together.
• Causing another to stumble in their trust in God is one of the worst things you or I could do.
• Reconciliation within the community between those who are hurt and those who did the hurting is Christ’s work in our midst.

Which leads Jesus to today’s parable.

Jesus says once and for all today what he’s said in many ways and places: forgiveness is the life of the community and it’s non-negotiable. The ruler in the story loves both servants, but one cannot forgive the other. The ridiculously high debt he had in this story was wiped away, and he thought that was just about him. But forgiving his debt came from the king’s gut-level compassion for all the king’s people, and the king expected that the forgiven one would share in that same compassion. Everyone belongs inside the grace.

This forgiveness is all about the community. Jesus’ last line literally says, “So my heavenly Father will do to you all if you all do not forgive each individual sibling from your hearts.” Jesus speaks to the plural: the community must be the source and place of forgiveness. Or the community, together, will suffer.

This isn’t an individual thing, where if you fail to forgive someone it’s between you and them. Where if you are forgiven by God that’s all that matters to you. Forgiveness belongs to Christ’s community, happens in the community, and a broken relationship between any of us affects all of us. Because we do not live to ourselves and we do not die to ourselves. Whether we live or whether we die, we belong to Christ. And if we all belong to Christ, we all belong to each other.

We have not lived this well in the West, even as Christians.

Most indigenous American cultures and indigenous African cultures live with the community as the central identity. A death or suffering affects all. A birth brings joy to all. Problems are solved together.

But in Western cultures, the individual rules supreme. Individual rights, no one gets to tell you what to do, everyone for themselves, this is the code the dominant culture in the West has lived by for centuries.

It will take you and me much prayer and contemplation together to learn a different way of being in Christ.

We do not live to ourselves, and we do not die to ourselves. Whether we live or whether we die, we are God’s own.

It’s all here, in Jesus’ teachings, and in all Paul’s letters. We have all we need to begin to let go of our individualism and find the joy of belonging, of interconnectedness with all our siblings in Christ.

And if we can live this, we can also bear this truth as yeast in our culture, witnessing in this polarized, “live in your own bubble” world that all people belong to each other, and no one can be lost, or we all are lost.

And that could change even a country divided as deeply as ours. Because whether we live or whether we die, we all are God’s. And God’s Spirit binds together all God’s children on this earth.

And when all God’s children start to live that way, we will all see what God has dreamed all along.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen

Christ is always with us, even if two are gathered, and that means God is at work in all the world’s suffering and pain, not just us.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost, Lectionary 23 A
Text: Matthew 18:15-20

Beloved in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

In the overwhelming crises of our time, on top of our own anxieties and problems, we may be forgetting something really important.

I’ve been in conversations with Christians for decades about all sorts of societal and church problems. Nearly always, the conversation centers on what God calls us to do as Christians, what actions we should take.

Do you know what’s almost always absent? Any talk of the Triune God’s actual presence in our work, God actually doing anything. When God is mentioned – I’ve seen this at all levels of this church – it’s nearly always in terms of what God wants of us.

In personal pastoral care, my job is to ask the God questions and help listen for God’s answer: where do you see God in this? What is God’s prayer for you? How might God be able to help or heal? But those questions are critical any time we’re considering suffering – including communal – and our call to be Christ in that suffering.

If we’re not considering what God is doing with and for us, we’re missing the key to everything. Jesus shows us this today.

Today’s verses are well known, usually to people who know how congregations do excommunication.

Jesus says when someone in your faith community sins against you, go to them individually, then, if needed, bring a couple others, then take it to the whole community. Many congregational constitutions make this the process to remove someone from membership.

Jesus means the absolute opposite. Listen to him: “where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.” If there’s a breach in the community, the hurt person is to go to the hurter, and talk. But then two are together, aren’t they? Which means Christ is right there, among them. Do you see?

Reconciliation isn’t done by you or me following these steps. It’s done when you or I, alone or in larger groups, go to the person with Christ Jesus present among us. Only the presence of the Crucified and Risen Christ in the midst of the two, or three, or community, makes reconciliation possible.

And Jesus wants more than reconciliation.

In our midst, the powerful grace of God will work on all we face. Jesus’ promise here is open-ended: “where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.”

So, in reconciliation – you are not trying to reconcile alone, I am there with you, Christ says. In problems with your life, when you walk with another person – you’re not facing your life crisis alone, I am with you, Christ says. In the massive problems of our society, whether systemic racism or poverty or oppression or destructive self-centeredness masked as governing, if even two of us gather in Christ’s name to consider what we can do personally, or as a congregation, or a nation, “I am there with you,” Christ says.

That means we should expect to be able to break the power of racism, even in our own hearts. We should expect to be able to end poverty and hunger. We should expect to be able to create a just society. We should expect to be able to cope with our own suffering and pain and find hope and healing, even in the face of death. Because none of this is something you and I face alone. The power and grace of Christ is in our midst and working to bring life.

And these aren’t just feel-good words.

The Scriptures are full of specific promises of what Christ brings when Christ is with us.

Christ brings insight and wisdom when you and I are stuck with an intractable problem. Christ brings peace and stillness of heart when you and I are in pain and struggle for hope. Christ brings forgiveness when you and I face our brokenness and sin together. Christ brings strength and courage when you and I are trying to work for God’s mercy and justice, or tempted to give it up. Christ brings guidance and direction when we’re lost. Christ brings resurrection life when death seems to have the final word.

God’s word is clear: in our midst, Christ’s presence changes everything, transforms minds, hearts, lives, the whole creation.

But when can we gather – even as two or three – in a pandemic?

Oh, some of us can be with one or two people from time to time. But many live alone. And even if there is some contact, it’s distanced, and we still spend lots of hours isolated. No worship in the same space. Fewer times to gather and talk, eat, laugh, cry together, have someone be a listening ear or comforting hug.

But we are baptized into Christ, so there is never a time we are not gathered together. The Body of Christ spans the planet, spans time, so even those who have died and live in Christ’s resurrection are with us. This was true 1,500 years ago, true 500 years ago. It is true now.

As with the ancients, even while physically apart, we are always together in the Spirit. But with modern technology, we can actually experience this more easily. We can talk to or see each other even at a distance, through phones and computers. COVID-19 can’t prevent the Body of Christ gathering.

And if we are together in the Spirit even when apart, that means Christ is always among us.

Whether it’s the work Mount Olive is called to in these troubled times or just your path of life that sometimes winds through dark woods and treacherous ground, know this: you are not alone. Nor do you and I do our discipleship alone.

Because Jesus, the Christ, the face of God, promises: when you are with others in my name (and you are always with others in the Spirit), I am with you. I give you wisdom, guidance, strength, courage, forgiveness, hope, and you will see healing. You will be able to deal with whatever you’re facing, because my grace and power are there with you, too. Always.

And that will make all the difference.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen